When I was a young boy, the sound of music was heard daily throughout our household. My grandfather taught me to play the violin, and my father conducted the Marylhurst Orchestra, Metropolitan Youth Symphony, and performed on the violin with the Oregon Symphony and Portland Opera. I clearly remember hearing my father practice his violin every single day.

In 1981, shortly after earning his U.S. citizenship, my father, Lajos Balogh Jr., wanted to honor the country that had adopted him by assembling an orchestra of professional musicians and conducting them in free outdoor symphony concerts to communities throughout the city of Portland. This was the beginning of the Portland Festival Symphony.

Almost forty years later, the Portland Festival Symphony has performed every summer for thousands of music lovers and grateful citizens throughout Portland's public parks. Families - with blankets, picnic baskets, and children dancing on the grass -helped my father realize his dream to see a community brought together by beautiful music had come true. To make these concerts free of charge to the public, my father and the Portland Festival Symphony have worked tirelessly throughout the years to raise funding from generous individuals, foundations, and local businesses.

With all of this musical and family history to share, and as my father passes the baton to Maestro Gregory Vajda (Huntsville Symphony, Hungarian Radio Symphony, Oregon Symphony), I'm very excited to announce that my musical ensemble, 3 Leg Torso, will be joining the Portland Festival Symphony this coming summer to perform two concerts, in Laurelhurst and Peninsula Parks, August 11th & 12th. This will be our third appearance with the Portland Festival Symphony in the last twenty years, and it will once again be a showstopper! 3 Leg Torso's genre-hopping cinematic world chamber music arranged for full symphony orchestra has delighted listeners of all walks and ages, bridging the gap between serious art and popular culture, uniting all with their high artistry, compelling music, and joyful energy.

For this unique musical partnership to be presented FREE to the public, 3 Leg Torso is humbly asking for your generous help by making a contribution. Our GoFundMe goal is $6400, which will help cover the cost of rehearsal time with the symphony, orchestration of additional 3 Leg Torso tunes, musician fees, management expenses and promotional costs. Your donation will specifically benefit this meeting of musical forces between 3 Leg Torso and the Portland Festival Symphony, and your help will make it possible for this wonderful collaboration to bring joy to every single participant - audience, symphony musicians, and all of us in 3 Leg Torso.

Dear Friends,
We're finally coming up for air after a super busy summer, and we wanted to share this video with you to show our appreciation for your generous support.
Please stay in touch, we always love hearing from you!

We reached out to you for your help and you answered our call! We are so thankful and excited to announce that we have arrived at our GoFundMe goal, and this was only possible because of you!

Sixty-nine of you became our GoFundMe partners in the mission to bring this collaboration with the Portland Festival Symphony to the parks in Portland, and a couple thousand grateful music lovers will get to experience these free concerts in the parks with their friends and families.

We are committed to continuing our help with the Portland Festival Symphony's mission of presenting free concerts in the parks for the future, so we are
still accepting any future contributions from generous supporters.

For those of you who donated after our print deadline for the concert programs, we will proudly announce your names from the stage. We will also have a 3LT benevolent supporter page with contributor's names on our new website when it goes live!
If you are opposed to having your name publicly mentioned, please respond to this message to let us know.

Thank you again for helping us along with our journey to provide music in the parks. We hope to see you at one, or even both of these concerts. We had a very successful rehearsal with the orchestra with Maestro Gregory Vajda last week and we know that these are going to be special and exciting concerts. See you there!

Dear friends, we are so close to our GoFundMe goal!
We are very excited that this project is moving forward, and all of us in 3 Leg Torso are so grateful for your generous support. Without you, this would not be possible. With love and appreciation, Bela, Courtney, T.J., Milo, and Brett.

Hi Friends! Our most recent video featuring Courtney has brought us new donations from supporters like you, and we can't thank you enough for inspiring people to donate and help us move toward our goal of bringing these FREE concerts to Laurelhurst and Peninsula Parks August 11th and12th.
Thank you, and we look forward to seeing you!